And a Parting Whisper Promised
by JL Light
Summary: She slowly inhaled and then looked around the store. The peculiar little store that inexplicably drew her in. Into the smiling clerk, the glimmering baubles and bells, the musky incense that made her thoughts spin…into the past.
1. My Tiny Oasis

**And a Parting Whisper Promised**

_Suou-chan_

Disclaimer: Inuyasha isn't mine. I suppose that can be considered a good thing.

**Prologue: My Tiny Oasis **

"_We will meet again. It matters neither time nor place, I will find you. That is a promise."_

The streets shone with the soft glow of hanging lights that dangled from street lamps and intertwined with shop gables, weaving over and across bustling lanes of faceless bodies. The blushing bulbs shone sometimes red, sometimes green, and sometimes yellow – dancing overhead and casting cheerful shadows onto the gray pavement. Shop windows shone a warm yellow, a warm and inviting color that drew shoppers into a dazzling world of crystal baubles and mistletoe. It was a warm evening for December, and snowflakes fell in gentle flurries, landing softly upon the hats and scarves and eyelashes of unknowing bystanders before softly fading away. Swirling white accompanied a symphony of tinkling giggles as flashing lights swayed in gentle gusts, likening the avenue to gates that lead to Aurora Borealis on the Polar Express.

But the magic of the evening was lost to her – she felt none of this as she hurried through the street, weaving through bodies that leisurely ambled down the boulevard. It was Christmas Eve, and Kagome was sulking. She was doing some necessary last-minute shopping for friends, who had suddenly decided upon an impromptu gathering for the holiday.

Alone and unhappy, she trudged along the darkening street, balefully eyeing the happy couples around her with resentful eyes, grudging them of their happiness on the beautiful holiday night. The merry holiday cheer was suffocating her, and she just wanted to take care of things and go home. Kagome looked dead, as usual. Stormy blue eyes that once so powerfully expressed her loneliness and grief had foregone their usual vivacity for a look of deadened fury. Of course, after a couple of months of relentless tossing and turning in her sleep, was that such a surprise? And it was true – she hadn't had a good night's sleep since her return from the Sengoku Jidai.

Feeling incredibly bitter and hostile at the world, Kagome glanced with listless eyes and venomous heart at the particularly sparkly, cheery window display to her right, hoping with all her might that her remarkable willpower could smash every twinkling red-green light bulb in that disgusting display of Christmas spirit.

_blink blink_

Then gasped in fright and felt her brain slowly melting into a pile of soggy pink eggnog.

'_So bright! So blindingly, blindingly bright!'_ Her mind silently cried out in the agony of suddenly being bombarded with pure, unadulterated holiday cheer.

The clerk behind the ϋber happy window display was frantically beckoning to her. Kagome tried madly to resist against the invisible hands that seemed to drag her in through the ominously tinkling door and into the shop. _'No! My sweet darkness! My soothing depression! My beautiful bottomless pit of despair! Let me loll in my loneliness and leave me be! Just me and my misery and…fluffy pink bunnies in Santa Clause suits. How…delightful.' _Kagome thought dryly, and steeled herself to deliver a polite but curt "no, thank you," and return to her unwillingly undertaken – but one that offered her so much more "let me drown in my very own cesspool of self-pity because my life is crap" time – task of Christmas shopping.

The clerk was enthusiastic and persistent…very much so. But in such an innocent and obliging, and strangely _familiar_, kind of way that Kagome just couldn't start mouthing him off for disturbing her let-me-hate-the-world-in-peace time. So when he gently took her by the arm and led her to the back to look at a row of what seemed to be porcelain figurines, she didn't jerk it back and throw him a dirty look that promised death in the other life. And when he held out a figurine for her to examine, she at least deigned to look at it seriously. She gasped.

Fierce features and proud stance marked the intricate statuette, a demonic dog with fiery ruby eyes, painstakingly done and perfect to the most miniscule of details. The figure…it reminded her of Sesshoumaru – it seemed that its maker possessed a rare talent capable of capturing the unbridled beauty that was solely his, with his wild, passionate, and indomitable force compacted tightly into the delicate glass. Eyes suddenly misty from unbidden tears, Kagome cursed herself for being weak. It had already been nearly a year, yet she was still as dejected as ever. With shaking fingers, she gently palmed the delicate porcelain dog. It smelled of incense, a strong musty smell that reminded her of times too long past.

She slowly inhaled and then looked around the store. The peculiar little store that inexplicably drew her in. Into the smiling clerk, the glimmering baubles and bells, the musky incense that made her thoughts spin…into the past.


	2. No Longer Comfortable

**And a Parting Whisper Promised**

_Suou-chan_

Disclaimer: Inuyasha isn't mine. I suppose that can be considered a good thing. Cue sigh.

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**Chapter One: No Longer Comfortable**

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"That's it! Inuyasha! Osuwari!"

Once again, Inuyasha's face had an up-close-and-personal appointment with the ground beneath his feet, and his poor stomach had yet another mouthful of dirt to digest.

"Kagome-chan, please…you know how Inuyasha is…blahblahblah…"

Miroku said, trying to placate the slightly pissed Kagome. 'Damn that monk, he's always had such a way with words," she thought, as once again she felt her will give beneath the persuasive powers of the perverted houshi. She sighed, and tuned him out. Really, she didn't know what was wrong with her today. It wasn't like her – this open hostility. No, even though she did often feel the need to smash that stupid hanyou's head in like an overly ripe pumpkin, she could usually keep control. And it really was bad of her to make Sango and Miroku worry. Thinking about them, a flash of guilt shot through her heart; the two had so much going on for them. Sighing, she trained an expression of utter boredom as she watched Miroku peel an irate inuyoukai from the ground.

And really, as much as she enjoyed watching Inuyasha repeatedly reacquaint himself with good old Mother Nature, it still didn't help any. With Naraku and countless others stalking the group's trail, it really didn't pay having inu-prints littered across the Western Lands to mark their progress. Besides, it left a fuming Inuyasha – and God knows how belligerent he was normally, so she definitely did not need to add pepper on to his regular hotheadedness.

But it was starting to take a toll on her. Her secret, that is. Well actually, now that she thought about it, it was really Inuyasha's secret – Inuyasha's and Kikyou's. No, Kagome may have been a little dense when it came to her feelings for the hanyou, but after you've been hurt on your blind side for so many times, well, wouldn't that blind side find a way to see? And Inuyasha was her blind side. To him, she had been ready to give her life. She sighed. How much had she sacrificed to be here with him? Estranged from her world, and gradually casting herself out of the lives of her friends and family. And not to mention the fact that she was never going to be able to catch up on her homework now that her place in the "inu-gumi" had become her one priority. Kagome let out a low, mirthless chuckle. She had to admit, she had once flirted with the idea of permanently staying in the feudal era, with her friends that she found harder and harder to part. But she'd long abandoned the hope of Inuyasha seeing her as anything more than his friend the shard-hunter.

Speaking of which, what was that dumb hanyou still muttering about anyway?

"…baka ningen, what the hell is her problem? Dumb bitch, that hurts, dammit! Kuso! What the fuck is that useless woman thinking? Woman, I'm telling you, if you…"

Kagome sighed. "Inuyasha. Osuwari."

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That night, Inuyasha left, again. It had been happening regularly for quite some time now, with Kikyou magically appearing at twilight with her shikigami, and the two of them slyly stealing off into the night, undoubtedly finding some secluded place to mutter sweet nothings to each other.

Clenching her eyes, Kagome turned to lie on her back. Staring into the beautiful, cold skies with eyes painfully dry, she decided. She would endure the pain no longer.

Tonight, she was going to leave.

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The Great Lord of the West Sesshoumaru-sama was irritated. Sculpted brows furrowed, an aristocratic mouth frowning ever so slightly (servants would later deny ever seeing such an uncommon spectacle), he was the very image of aggravated inu-taiyoukai. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, considering the powerful young lord was rarely seen showing any emotion at all. So some would say that this slight slip of the otherwise impregnable mask was a good thing – it showed emotional awareness, character depth. An audacious Little Freud might even go as far as to say that Sesshoumaru-sama was rediscovering himself, exercising his facial muscles in an attempt to regain childhood propensities and overcome oedipal whatnots.

But most would simply mutter an adamant "bullshit" at the poor chap who dared make such speculations over the irate inuyoukai, before scattering for their lives. To hell with emotional rediscovery; an impassive Sesshoumaru was a good Sesshoumaru – it meant that he hadn't yet noticed what an aggravating, brainless fool you were, and you would probably be able to live another day.

Be that as it is, Sesshoumaru was indeed _not_ exploring the facial muscles necessary to smile. He'd already mastered those as quite a young pup, and had no need of employing their services now as a young lord.

The source of his irritation was, in fact, due to a series of reports he had received regarding the youkai that had been frequenting his territory. As inhabitants of the Western Land, they were naturally obligated to follow certain rules of decorum, and there were very few breaches. Cases of attacked human villages and rampaging youkai were rare enough not to merit his especial attention. And this shouldn't have required his personal presence. Alighting upon his magical fluffy pink cloud (which was most definitely _not_ fluffy _nor_ pink, regardless what Rin liked to call it), he turned unmoving golden eyes to the east.

'How tedious.'

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So it wasn't that smart of a thing to do. In fact, Kagome would probably rank this particular plan of action right next to being thrown into a lake of hungry piranhas and living without oden. She was tired, terribly lost, and she could swear that her stomach was beginning to digest itself. The young miko groaned, wringing water out of soaked socks. 'Well, fishing is definitely not my forte.' And apparently, neither was planning ahead. She had left her bags of ramen with the group, and her secret stash of instant energy – chocolates, candies, assorted sugar candies – had fallen into a nearby stream during her ill-executed attempts to spear some actually substantial chow. Not to mention having to deal with a load of shit for the past two weeks, be it hungry, greedy little youkai hell bent on getting their grubby little hands on her Shikon no Tama, or the Inu-ikkou that seemed to always be hot on her trail…well, with 20-20 hindsight, Kagome's decision to travel alone was certainly _not _one of her best moments.

Thinking about Inuyasha, she cringed. Other than trying her very best to keep ahead of her friends, Kagome really hadn't been dwelling on them at all since she left them that night. And she'd been kept busy by a steady stream of youkai that had been attacking her each day, undoubtedly because she was now traveling alone with the Shikon no Tama in her possession. Frowning at the pinkish skin running in a jagged line along her arm, Kagome picked up her things and started walking. Things were entirely too quiet. Sure, she'd been skewering rampant youkai daily, but the very fact that she was able to skewer them was odd. They didn't put up much of a fight, and she never had too many problems: she'd been relatively unharmed, save for the scratch on her forearm – one that she got from shielding her face from a kappa that had managed to get past her arrows, and that was already healing – and the one on her thigh (Kagome blushed darkly – that particular wound had been a result of her own clumsiness only). Kagome hadn't been attacked at all by any formidable demons, and the regularity with which the weak assailants appeared left her restless and on tenterhooks.

But first – the young lady eyed her protesting stomach rather distastefully – food.

She sighed. And trudged on.

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A/N: Eh…just took the ACTs yesterday, so decided to celebrate by getting my butt in gear and finally finishing the rest of this chapter. I FINALLY UPDATED! WOOPPEE! It's probably because I haven't touched this in a while, but it took _so_ long to churn the last two paragraphs out. It feels like my writing style's screwed up now. I think that maybe I'll just stick to one-shots after this. Instant gratification is good stuff…I just want Sesshou and Kagome to fall in love already, and be done with it! Maa…demo, gomen nasai minna-san! ;;

Please review, and give some desolate soul (mine) reason to continue!


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